True Weird: Ghost Stories from a Taal native

We met Irene at the ruins of a crypt that dated back to the Spanish era. Our hosts had brought me and my friend there to catch a glimpse of the Taal not yet accessible to tourists.
The structure was discovered last year. Irene’s father, Mang Bernard, was the first to explore its depths, lowering himself down a hole in the dome atop the crypt, dropping into a small cavern that contained a long rectangular table surrounded by chairs. “They say it contains a tunnel that leads to the basilica,” Irene said in Tagalog.

I waved my hands vaguely; I tend to do that when I’m embarrassed. “Strange things. Supernatural things.”

Irene brightened. “Oh!” Her tone said, ‘why didn’t you say so.’

“I saw a kapre once. I think I was in grade five. I opened a window and there he was, standing outside.”

He was extremely tall, she said, with broad shoulders and red hair so thick it looked like fur. Something glowed in his hand; she guessed it was the cigar the beings were never seen without.

“And then what happened?”

“He ran away.”

We chuckled at the thought of a small girl startling a big monster.

“Was that your only experience?”

She told us about the house she grew up in, when the family would hear a baby crying under the floorboards in the middle of the night, even though it had been years since the youngest child was a toddler.

She waved a hand at the family house in a clearing just beyond the ruins. “We’ve found a lot of bones here. I guess it used to be a cemetery, probably the part where they buried folks who couldn’t afford the crypt. Our neighbors found bones while they were constructing their houses, too.”

I wanted to hear more stories, but it was time to go. “You should talk to my father,” Irene said. “He’s seen things.”

I said that I would love to one day. Goodbyes were said, and we returned to the car.

I always love hearing about people’s brushes with the supernatural. I may not be sure such beings exist, but I continue to hold out hope that they do. The world would be far less interesting, otherwise.